Requiem for a machine

By T.W. Burger It was built somewhere around 1917, the same year my father was born and while the U.S. threw itself into World War One, also known as The Last War. As if. It was a gift from a schoolteacher aunt when I was 15. I like to think she gave it to me because she recognized in me a writer taking root. More likely, she had decided nobody would ever be able to decipher my handwriting. It was…